Buccaneering businessman Hanson dies

Lord Hanson, the proudly Conservative businessman and one of the arch corporate raiders from the 1970s and 1980s, died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. He was 82.

The peer built up the business from small beginnings to one which famously was "from over here which is doing rather well over there", making just about everything, from Wills cigarettes to Ever Ready batteries.

Holly Hamill, his personal assistant for over 30 years, said that Lord Hanson died peacefully at his cottage near Newbury, Berkshire, with his son Robert at his side yesterday afternoon.

Lord Hanson had been first diagnosed with prostate cancer five years ago. However, it was understood to have spread in the past six to eight months. As well as Robert, he is survived by his son Brook and his step-daughter Karyn. Lord Hanson's wife Geraldine died of leukaemia in February.

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James Hanson made his name buying up and then turning around under-performing businesses, starting with Wiles Group, which sold sacks of fertiliser to farmers in 1965.

Over 32 years, he and Gordon, later Lord White built up a business that was worth just £20 million in 1964 to one worth more than £6 billion when he retired in December 1997 - so big that it had to be split up into five parts.

Hanson plc's buccaneering spirit was well-received in the United States, where Lord Hanson became one of the few British businesses to succeed there, primarily through the hard work of Lord White.

Asked about his plans for Hanson in the US, Lord White once replied: "At the start of the Second World War, Britain owned more than 30 per cent of US Inc and it would be rather nice to get that back." It was no accident that the Hanson logo was an image of a Union flag and Stars and Stripes intertwined.

Lord White and Lord Hanson were a winning partnership. Hanson was knighted in 1976 - in Harold Wilson's famous "lavender list" - and created a life peer by Margaret Thatcher in 1983.

Martin Taylor, who worked for the peer between 1969 and 1995, latterly as vice-chairman of Hanson plc, said that Lord Hanson's greatest business attribute was making swift decisions.

He said: "He was tall, a great presence. His ability to make fast decisions when he had mastered the information was one of his strengths. He created a team of 20 to 25 people, most of whom worked for him for a long time. He gave them his loyalty and they were loyal to him."

Derek Rosling, Lord Hanson's other vice-chairman, who worked for him from 1964 to 1997, paid tribute to him, rating him as one of Britain's "best businessmen of the last 50 years", ahead of the modern business heroes such as Sir Richard Branson.

Hanson plc's shareholders loved him. Mr Rosling added: "At every Hanson AGM, shareholders adored him. From very small beginnings he built a very international company that was revered on both sides of the Atlantic."

He had his detractors, of course. A biography by the journalists Alex Brummer and Roger Cowe, published in 1994, concluded that there was "little evidence to support the popularly held opinion that Hanson and his team have demonstrated a good record of running businesses".

Mr Rosling admitted that Hanson plc put a few noses out of joint. However, he added: "If companies were not working, we did something about it. But we were not asset-strippers - we were only being successful by encouraging the management to do better."

Mr Rosling last saw Lord Hanson three weeks ago. He said: "He was in good spirits but he was on medication. He was not the man that we knew 20 years ago."